MY EVERYDAY HEROES, MY INSPIRATION!
by Bhavina F.

The circuit breaker period brought many activities to a halt in the Lion City but that never stopped fourth grade student Bhavina F. from checking one big accomplishment off her list — to be an author. While students were forced to go back to distance learning and reimagine their free time indoors, Bhavina worked on her debut book, My Everyday Heroes, My Inspiration! We caught up with the young author and she shared some insights into her creative process, challenges faced, and some tips to help inspire other aspiring authors:

1. When did you first realize that this is what you’d like to do? How did you begin this journey?
It started off during the COVID-19 circuit breaker period as an assignment to improve my writing skills and penmanship. I did not show much interest initially but to make it interesting for me, my mom (Seema Farswani) arranged for me to talk to different people about their lives and challenges. I got to speak to surgeons, doctors, dance and sports coaches, teachers, and counselors, from around the world!

As I am an avid reader, the idea of becoming an author was also quite exciting. I thought writing a book was easy and I even told my interviewees that my book would be ready in two weeks. But of course, that was not possible, especially during a pandemic. I never gave up though and I knew I had to see it through.

2. Were there milestones in the process that helped you?
There were several such milestones in the past four months. The first was planning and preparing for the interviews. After that, I spent many torturous weeks listening to the recorded interviews repeatedly, typing each hour-long conversation, and then trying to summarize so that I had something written to work with. It was starting to feel like a very painful chore by the second month, but my parents recommended I did this.

I almost gave up after interviewing my ninth hero but fortunately my dad (Yogesh Farswani) saw that I was struggling and helped me get excited about the project again. We took a step back to think through the objective of this project, who my audience would be, and why I shouldn’t give up. I then had some clarity about what I wanted the book to look like. That started to move things quite quickly for me and it started to feel like the book was slowly coming together.

Another huge milestone for me was when I watched a touching video about the hardships that girls my age face. This was on Akhand Jyoti Eye Hospital website. I immediately decided that at least half the proceeds from the sale of each book would go toward helping underprivileged children.

3. Could you tell us more about your creative process?
The fun and creative parts of the journey started before the interviews when I had to research the profession of my interviewees and develop more than 15 questions for every individual. I then summarized their life journey using a lot of imagination to bring the personality to life for the reader, which was also so much fun! I also did a lot of online research about certain topics mentioned in the interview that I was not familiar with. I would like to give credit to my favorite illustrator, Ms. Kanchan Mehendale, who created the amazing illustrations and helped with the fun layout of my entire book.
 

4. What were the challenges you faced during this process? How did you overcome those challenges?
The first challenge was technology! The idea of using Zoom for the interviews, using my laptop for online research, and typing in PowerPoint was super exciting at first. After the first few interviews, I realized that I would need to type all of the information and understand all the complex words that different professionals use. Since there is no app or option like Siri that can do this automatically, this was a massive task for me. This then led me to my second challenge—how to make my stories exciting and interesting for others to read?

After a lively discussion with my parents about hard work and my objective for this book, I developed a DRLO for my readers. My Desired Reader Learning Objectives were to tell the personal story of the interviewees and highlight the interesting facts I learned about their personal journey and their profession. This became the turning point in the project for me.

5. Do you identify more with one of the adults you interviewed?
While it would be unfair to pick any one of the ten heroes, I think I can relate more to Ms. Vicky Lee Ward and Dr. Yashita. Ms. Vicky because I attend her dance school and admire how she strives to provide us dancers with the best training, and Dr. Yashita because she is a doctor and a dancer! I aspire to be a doctor someday who will be able to find time to dance as well!

6. What hobbies do you have outside of schoolwork and writing books?
I love reading and dancing. I spend approximately 10 hours in the dance studio per week. Tennis is another passion of mine.

7. What's next for you?
I would like to relax and enjoy my winter break. We have tossed some ideas around for the next book, but first I would like to focus on selling more books so that we can raise money for the young girls that are sponsored by the eye hospital.

Bhavina’s book features 10 of her heroes from around the world who have inspired her. Out of the 10 stories, two are stories of our very own educators — elementary school associate dean of student life Dr. Sarah Farris and former third grade teacher Ms. Laura Terrile. My Everyday Heroes, My Inspiration! was just released this fall. In Singapore, a special commemorative hardcover edition can be purchased for S$35 each by emailing at farswanifamily@gmail.com. Alternatively, for the convenience of her global audience, the book is also on Amazon.

  • author
  • elementary school
  • for the love of reading
  • reader
  • young author

 

 

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